Kodak Alaris responses and dispatches

[Ken Nadvornick]

Ken...

Ilford hasn't discontinued 95% of their analog photography products within the last five plus years as they struggled to go completely digital, all the while professing their undying long-term commitment to analog photography.

Kodak has.

That's where the credibility difference originates. That's why when Ilford says something we tend to believe it. And when Kodak says exactly the same thing, we don't. Words matter. Actions matter. And a lack of both also matters. (Corporate-speak doesn't count. None of us are stupid.)

If I were to ignore the last five years of Kodak words and actions completely, then I might agree the two companies' positions were not that much different. But that would be cherry-picking data in the extreme. That would violate every principle of observation I have been trained in. Ignoring standing evidence that contradicts one's already inferred conclusions is as intellectually wrong as it can be.

And Ilford's improvements to its current range of printing papers targets the very core of their existing product lines. And seems to have been very well received, from what I have read. (I am still working on a brand new 250-sheet box of the earlier MGIV, so it will be a while before I get there myself.)

Ken

 

[AgX]

Ilford hasn't discontinued 95% of their analog photography products within the last five plus years as they struggled to go completely digital, all the while professing their undying long-term commitment to analog photography.

Kodak has.

But Kodak had a different film range, that was more affected by the decrease in sales.

And with due respect to both companies, they both are only a shadow of their former self.

 

[Dr Croubie]

But Kodak had a different film range, that was more affected by the decrease in sales.

And with due respect to both companies, they both are only a shadow of their former self.

True, Kodak had a lot more invested in Ektachrome and cine film, which Ilford didn't (although Ilford had Ilfochrome back when it was one company).
Chromes earlier, and now cine, are getting eaten away by digital, as the DR of digital sensors improve C41 will be next, B+W will probably be the last man standing (at least, IMHO).
So being mostly B+W has definitely helped Ilford weather the storm (although don't forget Ilford went bust too, before it split and became the Harman we know and love), and Kodak was more exposed. But Kodak could have also concentrated on its B+W line and ditched E6 earlier (and left the E6 to Fuji).
Plus don't forget Kodak is a victim of its own success, those big coating machines cost a lot of time/money/people to run, great in the 90s but expensive with the fraction of the market they have now.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

But Kodak had a different film range, that was more affected by the decrease in sales.

And with due respect to both companies, they both are only a shadow of their former self.

But the fundamental issue is one of credibility, and how and why Kodak has so much less than Ilford. They have less because of their words, actions, and sometimes the lack of both.

And it's not because all of us here on APUG are a bunch of unrealistic whiners. I didn't create Kodak's poor response to the onset of digital photography. Neither did you. Or anyone else here.

[Edit: It should also be noted that while it's true Kodak had more film product lines to lose than Ilford, they were also proportionately far larger than Ilford, and so should have had, at least at the beginning, proportionately more resources to weather the storm and survive.]

Ken

 

[RattyMouse]

But the fundamental issue is one of credibility, and how and why Kodak has so much less than Ilford. They have less because of their words, actions, and sometimes the lack of both.

And it's not because all of us here on APUG are a bunch of unrealistic whiners. I didn't create Kodak's poor response to the onset of digital photography. Neither did you. Or anyone else here.

Ken

Absolutely. Kodak's lack of crediblity has nothing to do with APUG.

 

[StoneNYC]

I think Dan has a good point....

We all know that Kodak will be the next to get out of the film game, even before Fuji, so just stop complaining about it and shoot and enjoy it while it's here. There's no sense knocking our heads.

It will probably be 2 years, when the movie contracts end, and then they will sell off their B&W and color film formula to their current competitors and be out of the game...

Someone else will coat the films to ALMOST the same standard and we will still have Tri-X and TMY-2 for a long time as Ado-X and Ad-Max400 or something... Maybe Rollei-X haha

Go outside and shoot something besides your mouths

(Mods that's meant playfully not angrily).

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Go outside and shoot something besides your mouths

Can't. It's raining here. Been raining since last September.

But the wife IS dragging me out to take her to dinner in five minutes...

Ken

 

[RattyMouse]

I think Dan has a good point....

We all know that Kodak will be the next to get out of the film game, even before Fuji, so just stop complaining about it and shoot and enjoy it while it's here. There's no sense knocking our heads.

It will probably be 2 years, when the movie contracts end, and then they will sell off their B&W and color film formula to their current competitors and be out of the game...

Someone else will coat the films to ALMOST the same standard and we will still have Tri-X and TMY-2 for a long time as Ado-X and Ad-Max400 or something... Maybe Rollei-X haha

Go outside and shoot something besides your mouths

(Mods that's meant playfully not angrily).

Film contracts with Hollywood last until 2015. So we have a year and a half, less when you consider that 2015's coating have to happen early in 2015.

 

[StoneNYC]

Can't. It's raining here. Been raining since last September.

But the wife IS dragging me out to take her to dinner in five minutes...

Ken

Hah!!

You can shoot in the rain, just get some plastic bags... Heck if the holders get waterlogged you can call the resulting odd emulsion swelling as "art"

 

[pentaxuser]

A disinterested party, I feel, might conclude that at face value the two companies' positions were not that much different. Alas we seem to be the "hurt party " of the original happy marriage with Kodak who now in the divorce court wonders whatever we saw in our once lovely bride

pentaxuser

Everything I have heard and seen since my above post seems to establish the truth of the above analogy. There can be no reconciliation. As they say in British courts "M'lud. I rest my case"

I wonder how the two great antagonists, Kennedy and Krushchev are getting on in heaven with their reconciliation.Better than those who will never forgive Kodak, I feel.

Kennedy says: "All things considered I am surprised I got here, Nikita, how about you?"

Krushchev says: "You're surprised you got here? Well it's worse for me. As a good communist, I was convinced this place didn't exist in the first place.

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

In two years or so, most likely Harman will be contract manufacturing Kodak black and white films for Kodak Alaris.
It is the colour films that worry me.

 

[tiktianc]

Wow, this guys answers were total bull! complete cut and paste answers that show perhaps that a machine was 'reading' and answering the questions!

low confidence on this end... time to start stocking up the freezer....

 

[kb3lms]

pro-pack or Portra 160 (120 format) that I bought for $25.95 from Amazon earlier this month is now priced at $41.55

It's kind of hard to take Amazon prices seriously sometimes. Two weeks ago the price of a propack of Ektar was $28 something and now it's $24. Have you looked at their prices on ANY Ilford film? They are twice the price of B&H or Adorama!

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

In two years or so, most likely Harman will be contract manufacturing Kodak black and white films for Kodak Alaris.
It is the colour films that worry me.

[Back from eating out Mexican, now straightening up the darkroom...]

Matt, I could not agree more.

Except to say that I have this long-term nagging sense that if all of the other colour* film options go belly-up (EK walks away for good after fulfilling the MP contract and there are no more, Fuji throws the towel in favor of women's cosmetics, Ferrania bravely sails into the storm but runs hopelessly aground on uncharted rocks), and we ever reach the point where the ONLY other option is extinction (meaning the market would be entire theirs for the monopoly taking), Harman might just surprise on the colour side.

It's just rank speculation (repeat, rank speculation, as in "Hoi, that stinks!"), but they've done colour before. There would presumably be a plethora of available base formulae they might be able to obtain and tweak, or maybe they still have their own. They likely have the equipment. They either have, or likely could obtain, the expertise. It wouldn't cannibalize any of their monochrome lines, and might even synergize with them to increase b&w sales. And again, the incentive would be a captive monopoly market of residual color film users who would by that point have no other options.

And most importantly, they really, really do want to sell film. That's the Golden Prerequisite.

Under those stark hypothetical conditions? Who knows? Still might not be a high probability. But might not be a zero probability either.

Ken

* Consciously using the alternate spelling in hopes of generating good karma down the road...

 

[RattyMouse]

Everything I have heard and seen since my above post seems to establish the truth of the above analogy.
pentaxuser

Disagree completely. Your lack of rigorous understanding of what being said in this thread is in no way conclusive proof that your "truth" exists.

I would bet every last piece of photo gear I own, including film, that the harshest critics would be very receptive to an open, honest, truthful Kodak. Even if (and especially) if the message they were delivering were less than positive about their product line.

 

[Roger Cole]

But if a company thinks that in times of decreasing sales a improvement will not increase sales again, or not suffiently enough to be profitable on spent R&D, then that is what they actually say to their customers.
Most probably in different wording than yours.

I can't see anything wrong in that, even if I would not share their asessment.

I wouldn't put it the way they did, which sounds obnoxiously arrogant to me (but we southerners are sensitive to such things.) I would probably say something like, "the market conditions right now cannot support the resources we'd need for further R&D, and doing so would take away from our ability to continue offering our present films, the finest we've ever made, to our customers at an affordable price."

I would have understood that, and it would have sounded much better.

 

[Roger Cole]

Ken, I had defined improvements as improvements to the current range of products, not to the re-introduction of say former products such as paper, HIE, E6 etc

Ilford has been honest enough to tell us that it sees no point in introducing D25 or the equivalent of HIE as it has PanF and SFX

When Ilford tells us these thing we may be disappointed but shrug our shoulders and effectively cut Ilford slack because we believe it would do these things if it could and make a profit so doing but when KA says essentially the same thing we seem to believe it shows as lack of good intentions, lack of faith in film, preparing to sell off the family jewels

A disinterested party, I feel, might conclude that at face value the two companies' positions were not that much different. Alas we seem to be the "hurt party " of the original happy marriage with Kodak who now in the divorce court wonders whatever we saw in our once lovely bride

pentaxuser

It's all in the way they say it. Ilford didn't say "Pan F+ and SFX are perfect for what you want and you don't need anything more." Well, neither did KA but they weren't faced with such a specific question. To me that essentially IS what they said.

 

[Roger Cole]

I think Dan has a good point....

We all know that Kodak will be the next to get out of the film game, even before Fuji, so just stop complaining about it and shoot and enjoy it while it's here. There's no sense knocking our heads.

It will probably be 2 years, when the movie contracts end, and then they will sell off their B&W and color film formula to their current competitors and be out of the game...

Someone else will coat the films to ALMOST the same standard and we will still have Tri-X and TMY-2 for a long time as Ado-X and Ad-Max400 or something... Maybe Rollei-X haha

Go outside and shoot something besides your mouths

(Mods that's meant playfully not angrily).

Um, we do?

I'd expect Fuji to be gone first.

 

[MattKing]

Or:
"Our products are currently incredibly advanced, and at least arguably the best in the world, so for the immediate future we will be concentrating on making them easily accessable to as many users as possible, at as reasonable a cost as we can."

 

[Roger Cole]

That's fine too. "No improvements are necessary" implies perfection. They are damned good, I agree. They are not perfect.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I would bet every last piece of photo gear I own, including film, that the harshest critics would be very receptive to an open, honest, truthful Kodak. Even if (and especially) if the message they were delivering were less than positive about their product line.

On those occasions when I have the duty to be placed in charge of others the first thing I say to, and ask of, them is to always, always, always just tell me the truth. I stress that I don't care how good or bad the news is, or whether you think I want to know it, or need to know it, or won't be interested in it. I just want to hear it straight.

I tell them that if they will just be honest, and level with me, no retribution will ever be extracted. No punishments will accrue. No penalties will be assessed. Knowing the truth, and knowing it's credible, I will stand up for them and shield them from the wrath of others. I'll take the shots for them. I'll take the arrows in the back.

And if the news is bad, then they can trust that we'll find a way to work through it together. I'll buy them more time. Or I'll sit with them and work side-by-side. And if I don't know what's going on either, I'll admit that to them instantly in return. And we'll find someone else to help us both.

People are amazingly resilient if you trust them. You'd be amazed at what they can deal with, if they just know the truth.

That approach has never, ever failed me.

Ken

 

[StoneNYC]

Um, we do?

I'd expect Fuji to be gone first.

Fuji actually states "we will continue to make film forever"

Kodak stated "we will continue to make film while the market sustains"

Also, fuji discontinued thee movie film line and came out with new boxes on their line that they are keeping and able to do so without the movie film line.

Kodak has 2 years on their movie film line, both lines are produced by the same company which is not KA, when the movie line can't profit anymore, kodak with it's massive machine won't sustain on just still film, it will crash unless something huge happens like mentioned earlier with a sell off to another smaller manufacturer.

So most likely Fuji will be around more than 2 years...

So I think many know all if this and think as I do.

If and when kodak fails before Fuji, Fuji will pick up the slack and do ok for a while if they can fix their own distribution issues.

 

[Dr Croubie]

... it will crash unless something huge happens like mentioned earlier with a sell off to another smaller manufacturer.

If and when that happens, if Ilford want to kickstarter-fund the purchase of Kodak's Ektar and/or Portra coatings and machines, I'll be in on that...

 

[StoneNYC]

If and when that happens, if Ilford want to kickstarter-fund the purchase of Kodak's Ektar and/or Portra coatings and machines, I'll be in on that...

I would rather them buy Fuji's Velvia/Provia lines....

 

[RattyMouse]

If and when that happens, if Ilford want to kickstarter-fund the purchase of Kodak's Ektar and/or Portra coatings and machines, I'll be in on that...

Why would machines too big for Kodak to run suddenly be right sized for Ilford?